Constrained And Unconstrained Power Law Irregularity Models for Interpreting Strong Scintillation Data

We compare constrained and unconstrained power law irregularity models for characterizing and interpreting scintillations caused by field-aligned irregularities in the equatorial ionosphere. The unconstrained irregularity model we consider is the two-component power law model described in (Carrano and Rino, Radio Sci., 2016). The constrained irregularity model encapsulates this twocomponent model between explicit outer and inner scales. For both models, numerical quadrature is employed to solve the fourth moment equation governing intensity variations following propagation through a thin phase changing screen. By comparing the scintillation predictions produced by these models we deduce the influence of outer and inner scales under strong scatter conditions and also how they affect the inverse problem, whereby phase screen parameters are inferred from measured scintillation time series.